The Swift Current Fire Department experienced a pretty significant drop off in calls during 2020, especially when compared to the previous year.

Statistics released by the fire department last week say they had 565 calls in 2020, down from the 708 they had in 2019.

Swift Current Fire Department Deputy Fire Chief Peter L'Heureux said they're always hoping for fewer calls in a year especially on the fireside of things meaning they've done their job at educating the public about fire prevention.

"A decreasing call volume for us is what we would consider a success," he said. "Anytime we can decrease our call numbers or decrease our incidents, that's positive for us and for the community."

One factor that certainly skewed the number a bit is the COVID-19 pandemic, with fewer people leaving their homes and attending workplaces.

"Throughout the year specifically due to COVID, we saw fewer medical assists, fewer car accidents, we saw fewer everything when we look at earlier in the year," he said. "February, March, and April it was pretty specific and obvious to us that there was going to be a down year call volume in statistic wise due to the fact that people were concerned with COVID."

L'Heureux said with fewer people out and about in the community led to fewer motor vehicle collisions too, they responded to 61 in 2019 and 49 in 2020.

"I think at the beginning of the year people were very fearful of contracting COVID, going to the hospital, being out in public," he said. "I look at our later in the year statistical numbers where we see slightly more back to normal trending with the numbers is I think people were becoming more comfortable there, back out in the community, they're not afraid to call the ambulance, they're not afraid to go to the hospital, etc... I know that towards the end of the year we saw an increase in our medical call volume and the call-outs that we were getting for those calls.

In 2019 the detachment averaged about one medical call out a day (361), and this past year that number slipped to 270.

Fire calls were relatively unchanged from 93 in 2019 to 99 in 2020, however, rescues were sliced into a quarter the amount with 4 in 2020 and 16 in 2019.